Saban comments on his radio show tonight

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“To be honest with you, it’s all my responsibility how the players respond to whatever the circumstance is and whatever the game is,” Saban said. “One of the things that I tried to emphasize all week -- and we even talked about when we were on the radio show last week -- was players need to focus on good preparation, doing things right during the course of the week so they go in the game with confidence and there’s not going to be a lot of anxiety. We’re not going to focus on the outcome of the game nor the consequences that the game might have or whatever, which is all of what they hear every day in the media and all that kind of stuff, aight. We want them to focus on what they have to do to play good, and that was where I wanted to keep them. I didn’t want a lot of anxiety created by all these external factors and all that.

“And sitting in the locker room before the game, I was really nervous about the way our team looked because they didn’t look like they usually do. They were kind of quiet and kind of not how they usually are. And it was a concern. You never know how they’re going to respond when they go out there and start playing. I think there was a lot of nervous energy, I think there was a lot of anxiety and that’s really what I was trying to avoid. And I think once we got in there halftime and I said, ‘These are the things that we wanted you to do. We didn’t do any of those things in the first half, aight. So, let’s just settle down and do those things and do them well, and we’ll get ourselves back in the game.’ And they responded well to that because there wasn’t all this anxiety about what’s going to happen if this happens and that happens and all that. You can’t think about that.

“Just like right now, I don’t really want to talk to our players and I don’t want them to be talking about or hearing about what everybody else is talking about, my daughter and everybody else, it’s all I hear about -- ‘Are we going to get in the playoffs? Why did Georgia get ahead of us?’ I really don’t care about that, aight, because the only thing we’ve got to do is focus on what do we have to do to finish the season? And regardless of what everybody thinks out there, it’s a successful season to me, aight, and there’s only one team in the last 12 years, aight, that lost more than one regular-season game. That was the 2010 team, aight. So, in the last 12 years, there’s only been one team that lost more than one regular-season game in the whole time we’ve been here, aight. So, you be a part of a dynasty as a team if you can finish the season the right way and only lose one game in the whole regular season, aight.


“To me, that’s what we can control, and if that’s what we can do, aight, then the chips fall where they may. But when we lost the game, aight, we don’t control our destiny anymore, so why worry about that? Let’s worry about what we need to do to be the best that we can be to complete the season. Do you want to be a part of the dynasty or the end of the dynasty? In terms of what this team focuses on and what they can do, and all they have to do is go out and play the way they’re capable of playing and finish the season the way they’re supposed to finish it.”

Saban went on to say there are “too many blinking lights,” a phrased he used earlier this week. The head coach also revealed a player will be suspended for Saturday’s game at Mississippi State for not going to class, although he did not say which play will miss some time.

“I’ve said this before, when you look at a Christmas tree, all the lights shine bright,” Saban said. “But if one light bulb is going like this, that’s all you look at, aight. Well, when you have guys on the team that don’t do what they’re supposed to do -- I don’t care if it’s not go to class. I don’t care what it is, that’s a blinking light, and it’s a distraction and it’s a distraction for the players at practice.

“Like again this week, I’m going to suspend another player for the game because they’re not going to class, aight. I mean, that’s a distraction to everybody. Now, that guy’s not here, so somebody else is in his place. You’ve got to be able to depend on the guy beside you. Why do you not quit? Do you not quit because of you? Or do you not quit because of the people around you that you love and care about? I think a lot of the time when you’re a part of the team, you don’t quit because of those guys. You don’t want to let those people down.

“But you can’t have that. If we’re going to have a successful team, you can’t have blinking lights. I don’t care if it’s in the game, off the field, whatever it is. And we had too many in the game last week, and I don’t want to have any off the field. So, we’re going to coach the guys that’ll do the things the way we want them done, and the other guys are just going to have to be out of luck.”

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